Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [14]
“I tend to disbelieve in coincidences,” she replied reluctantly, “but I suppose they do occur. The rest of the Park are ordinary enough, in their way. Lord St. Jermyn I cannot fault; neither can I like him, in spite of the fact that it is he who will sponsor our bill through Parliament. Hester is a good woman making the best of an indifferent situation. They have four children, whose names I cannot remember.”
“Major Rodney is a widower. He was not at the interment, so you have not seen him yet. He fought in the Crimea, I believe. No one can recall his wife, who must have died thirty-five years ago. He lives with his maiden sisters, Miss Priscilla and Miss Mary Ann. They talk too much and are always making jam and lavender pillows, but are otherwise perfectly pleasant. There is nothing to say about the Cantlays. I believe they are precisely what they seem to be: civil, generous, and a little bored.
“Carlisle is a dilettante; plays the piano rather well, tried to get into Parliament and failed, a bit too radical. Wants to reform. Good family, old money.”
“The only one of any interest is that appalling American who bought number seven, Virgil Smith. I ask you?” She raised her eyebrows as high as they would go. “Who on earth but an American would call a child Virgil? And with a name like Smith! He’s as plain as a ditch, and with manners to suit. He has not the least idea how to conduct himself, which fork to eat with, or how to address a duchess. He talks to cats and dogs in the streets!”
Pitt had spoken to cats and dogs himself, and he found he was warming to the man immediately. “Did he know Lord Augustus?” he asked.
“Of course not! Do you imagine Lord Augustus kept the company of people like that? He had not the imagination!” Her face softened. “Fortunately, I am old enough for it not to matter anymore what company I am seen to keep, and I rather like him. At least he is not a bore.” She looked at Pitt rather pointedly, and he knew that he himself was included in the same bracket of socially impossible people who redeem themselves by not being bores.
He could learn no more from her at present, so, after thanking her for her frankness, he took his leave. This evening he would have to tell Charlotte that Dominic Corde was involved, and he wanted to prepare himself.
Charlotte had not taken more than a cursory interest in the case of grave robbing. It did not concern anyone she knew, not like the murders at Paragon Walk the previous year. She had plenty to keep her busy in the house, and Jemima was consumed with curiosity every minute she was awake. Charlotte spent half her day in household duties, and the other half deciphering Jemima’s questions and supplying answers to them. Time after time she could, with a flash of instinct, understand what Jemima meant and repeat the words over clearly to be imitated with solemn diligence.
By six o’clock when Pitt came home, cold and wet, she was tired herself and as glad as he to sit down. It was in the comfortable silence after dinner that he told her. He had debated how to phrase it, whether to lead up to it or simply be bold. In the end his own urgency overtook him.
“I went to see Aunt Vespasia today.” He looked at her, then away again, into the fire. “About the grave robbing. She knows everyone in Gadstone Park.”
Charlotte waited for him to continue.
Usually he was good at being evasive, coming to things in his own way, but this was too powerful; it forced itself to be said.
“Dominic is involved!”
“Dominic?” She was incredulous; it was too unbelievable, too unexpected to have sense. “What do you mean?”
“Dominic Corde is involved with the Fitzroy-Hammonds. Lord Augustus died a few weeks ago, and his corpse has been unburied twice and left to be found, once on the box of a hansom cab and once in his own pew in church. Alicia, his wife, now his widow, had an admirer, and has had for some time—Dominic Corde!”
She sat quite still, repeating his words over